


The Other Side of Things

by damedeleslac



Series: We're all a little bit crazy - verse [11]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Percy Jackson Fusion, Daemons, Darcy Lewis is Tony Stark's Daughter, Kink Negotiation, Multi, Sedoretu, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-22
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-25 05:57:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 5,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3799429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damedeleslac/pseuds/damedeleslac
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternate Universe, side stories, and random plot bunnies that won't leave my head and don't quite fit anywhere else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: It's not mine, really.

The Other Side of Things

 

 

 

One... Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder alternate version.

(The happier ending)

 

 

 

 

Darcy freaks out for a while.

For three days actually. Snarkier, and less able to put up with the idiots in her classes, and more aware of the list of cons; she'd mentally written about her apartment, than ever.

She stops after throwing the weird paper weight thing Tasha had gotten for her last Christmas, against the wall. Which was more than kind of stupid, because she's the one who has to clean up the mess, and it was something Tasha (who was still learning about trust and hugs and gift-giving) had given her.

Darcy cries after that.

She blames it on hormones, the unexpectedness of it all and the two secret agents disappearing; without saying goodbye, from her birthday last month.

The first positive pregnancy test is where she left it on the side of the sink, she lines two more up next to it and thinks about having them framed.

 

____

 

Later she takes a business card from the box under her bed, places it on the table next to her phone and contemplates the meaning of emergency.

(Whom ever Phillip J. Coulson is, Darcy doubts he ever expected to get a "Hi, one of your extra super secret spies knocked me up, and I really need to talk to him and the former Russian assassin he works with, please." call)

Darcy puts the card back in the box. Her being pregnant is not an emergency. It could be described as unexpected and inconvenient and strange, and it makes her want to freak out for more than three days, but it's not an emergency.

(It does however, give her an excellent excuse to drop her only morning class; the one that nobody wants to attend, those six science credits be damned.)

 

:::

 

It's strangely quiet on the other side of Darcy's door.

It's a nice door, in a better area than the last one and Clint really hopes it doesn't get slammed in his and Tasha's faces. They'd planned to sneak in and have some birthday cake before Darcy noticed they were there, but it doesn't sound like her usual birthday party's happening. Tasha gives Clint a look that says ' _postcards, 365 days, abandonment, manning up and moving on_ ' and knocks on the door.

There's a muffled "Hang on, just a minute", then the door opens and...

The blood drains from Darcy's face and she drops something into Clint's arms before throwing herself into Tasha's. It takes a minute; they're both staring at the quietly crying Darcy, to notice that the bundle he's holding is wriggling and making unhappy noises.

Clint's gaze drops from Darcy and Tasha to a pair of eyes that are eerily familiar.

"Darce... are you babysitting?" He whispers the question, not wanting to make the baby more unhappy.

"No." She mumbles, shaking her head against Tasha's shoulder.

It's a eureka moment.

Light bulbs, fireworks, a slap to the back of his head.

And Clint sinks to the floor, the baby; it's wearing green and he has no idea if it's a boy or a girl, safe and secure in his arms.

The look on Tasha's face is akin to horror, and only Clint (and maybe Phil) can tell that its at herself and what Darcy has done by herself.

"What is... its...name?" Tasha asks softly.

"Elizavetta Francine Lewis. Elsie, she's 15 weeks old tomorrow."

They have a daughter. She's beautiful, with his eyes and dark wisps of hair and a name that won't draw a target on her back.

Tasha takes the baby; Elsie, from his arms, swapping her for Darcy. She smiles at the confused face, rocking their daughter from side to side and softly singing a Russian lullaby.

Darcy hesitates before leaning into Clint. He pulls her as close as they can be and kisses her. Softly, then deeply and desperately.

 

___

 

Darcy has a knack for finding odd apartments. The last one had mostly been a dump, but with a bathtub big enough for all three of them.

This one looks like when the sprawling Victorian was split into four nice, neat, orderly apartments, they'd made what ever was left over into a fifth.

Darcy and Elsie's bedroom is up a narrow flight of stairs, around a corner and through a weird vestibule thing. Her bed has been pushed into a corner and the baby's crib is in what is probably (but might not be) a windowed closet.

Tasha helps Darcy put Elsie down for a nap and to pull a box out from under Darcy's bed.

She takes them back down to the kitchen and feeds them the left-overs from yesterday's party and lets them sort through the last year of her life.

Four months of morning (and afternoon) sickness marked on a calendar with drawings of frowning faces and coffee mugs. Hand knitted booties that Elsie has already grown out of. A cutting from the student newspaper about an un-named student giving birth in the library stacks. Six pregnancy test sticks. Letters from Darcy's grandmother.

An un-submitted birth certificate naming Clint and Tasha as the parents and Elsie's name as Vasalisa Belasaria Louise Barton.

( _"Belasaria?" Tasha wondered. Darcy answered, "She who shoots arrow skilfully."_ )

A photo album already half full of Elsie. And a photo of a pregnant Darcy at a convention getting hugged by Nathan Fillion and Jewel Staite, with the name Serenity Kaywinette Lee Lewis written on the back.

Clint has never truly, actively hated his job before.

"Did you save the world?" Darcy asks, knowing what the look on his face means.

They had, not being able to do anything more than nod in response.

"Then it's okay."

She's not exactly lying, but there are many things about the last year that won't be okay for a long time and they all know it. 

(Nothing that they aren't willing to try to fix.)


	2. Two. Souls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daemons - au.

 

 

Two... Souls.

 

Natasha doesn't remember Tovey settling.  
She remembers the stretching and the pulling and the days upon days of not seeing him, her fear that she would never see him again and what her behaviour was expected to be when she did.

  
Natasha remembers Miklos, Valeska's daemon being forced to resettle, and Tatiana's Galeaz who would not, and Tovey being poked and prodded until they'd decided he was acceptable, and Madame Volkova's Yovani kicking the other girl's daemons when they didn't keep up.  
There had been the soldier's dogs.  
The spy trainer's spiders, biting insects and snakes.  
The doctor's daemons who'd stared at her more than the doctors did.

And Eiddwen; a wolf hound when she'd first met the Winter Soldier, then a wolf dog later, and a scruffy wolf shaped shadow the last time she'd seen them.

 

:::

 

The agent - the archer - following her has no daemon that she can see, not until he steals her away from SHIELD. (Coulson's Keena watches Tovey without staring, and Fury's Shani ignores everybody.)  
Zillah crawls through Clint's hair and flutters around Tovey's head, excited where Clint is calm.She abandons all of them to flitter around the girl from the party. The ocelot huffing at the purple thorn moth before allowing her to land on his head.

Later, when Darcy nudges her foot against Tasha's, Cerano nudges his nose against Tovey's

 

 

 

 

 


	3. Three. . Care Package.

 

 

 

Three. ..Care Package 

 

 

The box arrives on a Tuesday. 

It's wrapped in brown paper and is slightly too big, but not too heavy too carry easily, and it sits on the kitchen table until Darcy finally opens it on Thursday. 

(Clint teases her a little at her rules about not opening things on the day that she received them an not wanting to open, potentially, good things on Odin's day. He doesn't try to get her to break her own rules though,  so what if she's a little bit crazy?)

 

From the box Darcy takes a weird little gizmo that says 'measuring tape'  on the side, a box of her favourite chocolates and one of the candy Clint loves; but she thinks is disgusting,  a quiver of arrows,  the boots she's been converting online,  and the latest - not yet available to the public - Starkphone.

 

 

Darcy jumps when the phone rings, fumbling to answer it. "Hello?"

"Miss Lewis," Jarvis greeted her ironically, "Or would you prefer Mrs Bartowski?"

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

A/N: so. ... I liked Age of Ultron, I know a lot  of people who are annoyed about the direction certain characters have been taken and wish they'd stuck to the original source material a little bit more,  but still enjoyed it as separate to the original source material. So,  yeah,  I liked it (a lot actually) , but now I have to go and try to rewrite some of it to fit in with this verse.

This is going to take me a while...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	4. Four... Seasonally Inclined

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Sedoretu chapter.

 

 

Four… Seasonally Inclined.

 

 

Natalia thinks her mother might have been Morning; once upon a time, but it's never been something she worries about.  
In the big house, The Red Room, they teach her how to play Morning and Evening, spring, summer, autumn and winter. (She’d excelled at spring.)  
And, has, on more than one occasion enticed someone into thinking they've participated in taboo behaviour.

Tasha doesn't think about it, never lets it worry her. She has Darcy and Clint, and the chance to wipe some of the red from her ledger, and that's enough.

*

Most Morning people are summer or spring and occasionally autumn. Clint is the only Morning and winter person he or anyone he knows, has heard of.  
(In the circus they’d tried to call him Jack Frost... once.)

*

Darcy is Evening and summer in a way that reminds Clint of long hot nights under the big top, sneaking out to go skinny dipping and sudden summer lightning storms.  
She'd laughed at him when he'd told her that, smiling in the way that always makes Clint feel like a dirty old man, and said that she knew the perfect place for skinny dipping.

(After Thor and all the mess of the Stark Expo Darcy takes Clint and Tasha out to a spot miles away from everything and they watch the storms rolling across the horizon.)

*

James Barnes is Evening and autumn.

The Winter Soldier is not.

 

 

* * *

 


	5. Five... Safe, Sane, and Consensual.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As the title suggests, this chapter does contain some potentially sensitive topics, read with caution.

 

 

 

Five... Safe, Sane, and Consensual.

 

 

Once Clint and Darcy realise that Tasha is a part (an important, necessary, emotional and physical part), of what ever it is that Darcy and Clint have, Darcy makes them all sit down and discuss what is and what is not mutually acceptable in their relationship.

Mostly (in theory) no-one is allowed to die, and Darcy; as much as possible, has to live by herself. (No-one really wants to think too much about the potential international security issues involved in having a roommate walking in on the government's best assassins. Especially during one of their amateur nudist days. _Cough, Clint, cough_ )

As always the theory works... And the practical is a little (a lot) more problematic.

 

:::

It takes a while. Tasha has trust and touch issues that they're all patiently (and; yes, occasionally impatiently) helping her to work out.

When they do get to the sex aspect of their relationship, Darcy and Clint have mostly worked out what they can and what they shouldn't do in bed with each other. And they have to go through everything again to learn how it applies to Tasha.

Stressful isn't a word any of them like using in relation to sex, but it is; on more than one occasion, an apt description.

Clint or Darcy handcuffing the other, or Tasha to the bed, is _**NOT GOOD**_.

_**REALLY NOT GOOD.** _

As is hair-pulling, especially while blindfolded, and the weird fibre-optic UFO lamp thing Darcy's landlady insists stays in the apartment.

 

:::

 

Darcy throws the lamp out the window as soon as they realise it's the problem. They all get more careful about hands in hair and Clint replaces what they were using as blindfolds with soft, fragile strips of sheer pale blue fabric.

 

:::

 

The handcuffs take a little longer to work around. It's definitely not a need when they have sex, but sometimes, it's a want.

_Sometimes all Darcy wants to do is tie Clint to the bed and fuck him until the only words he can remember are 'Hello Kitty' (his keep-going safe word) and 'Prince Humperdink' (his stop safe word). Sometimes Clint wants her to do this too._

It’s different if Tasha’s not there.

But when she is, neither of them want to do anything that Tasha's not going to enjoy as much as they will.

 

 

* * *

 AN: Thank you to everyone who left a kudos and to Shadows_of_Shemai and Lavanyalabelle, who commented. :)

 


	6. Chapter Six  .. Red and Gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Darcy is Tony's daughter au.

 

 

Chapter Six... Red and Gold.

 

 

 

Darcy tries not to think too much about The Trust Fund (or as Clint likes to call it 'the buy a medium sized island nation and pave it in gold-fund'). 

Mostly she succeeds. 

 

*

 

The fund, as explained to her eight year old self, was money that she could use when she got older, and that money meant different things to different people so she probably shouldn't mention it to other people. 

Since her biological mother; Darcy hasn't seen her since she was almost two and a half and she'd dropped Darcy off at her cousin's house for a couple of hours, has just tried to regain custody of Darcy (and therefore control of the trust fund) because she'd already spent her share of the settlement, eight year old Darcy is more than okay with not talking (or even thinking) about it.

 

She manages to not think about it until she's 17 and also has to think about college applications and the impending onset of adulthood. 

After sitting down with the fund manager, her parent's lawyer and the lawyers representing her biological father's side of things; ei: the money, and talking about the different educational opportunities and practical things like food and books, Darcy manages to sneak a look at how much is in the fund.

 

It's a lot of money.

Like buying all the whole town kind of money.

 

Later, she sneaks out to a bar (with her brand new Dara Larson ID), orders a beer and kisses the first person to call her out for being underage, before getting in the taxi he'd had the bartender order for her.

(Darcy's pretty sure she's seen him somewhere before and makes a mental note to buy her brother-the-cop something nice for letting her kiss the guy.)

 

*

 

It pays for college.  

It pays for food and books and spring break motel rooms and spring break hangover cures.

It pays for two scholarship funds she has the lawyers set up anonymously because, honestly, what else can she do with the money (it's not as if there isn't enough money to do it) and still be the person her parents raised her to be.

(It might also have paid for a ridiculous amount of pizza and ice cream and a hotel room with the word  _presidential_ in the name, but only once... or twice.)

 

* * *

 

Clint does think about the money.

Not in the how much or how can I spend it way (he knows how much money there is and exactly the sorts of things that kind of money can buy- people and silence top the list-  and he doesn't care about it). But more in the who's money _was_ it?

 

* * *

 

Natasha _knows_ where the money comes from.

Seven different law firms, five banks and eleven dummy corporations leads to a man who'd been barely 18 when Darcy had been born.

Who's parents had died in a car accident nine months earlier.

Who, thanks to his father's business partner, has absolutely no knowledge of Darcy's existence.

 

* * *

 


	7. Seven... Kintsugi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The expectantly (and unintended) tragic soul mate mark au.

Seven... Kintsugi

 

Bruce knows anger (he's always angry).  
Jealousy's also familiar (though not like this before).

He's fond of Darcy, more than he should considering she's already found her soul mates.

Bruce had walked in on them once; not actually doing anything, but the dark wanting look in Clit's eyes when Darcy had taken off her jacket to reveal the arrow down her left arm and Natasha turning over the younger woman's right hand to kiss the ribbons wrapped around the inside of her wrist, had made his heart clench.

(The bright copper and beetle black bands around his upper left arm had burned, and the star on the bottom of his right foot had felt like he'd walked over broken glass.)

He'd missed the sad eyes following his hasty retreat.  
Or the way Clint had nuzzled at the Dara knot on the nape of Darcy's neck, while Darcy kissed the curl of a fern frond on Natasha's shoulder and Natasha had twisted her fingers into the belt loops of Clint's pants; skimming the star on his hip bone, and pulling them all closer together.

:::  
When Brian Banner saw the marks on his son's skin, he'd walked out of the hospital; imagining all sorts of scandalised stares and whispers following, found the closest bars and attempted to drink himself blind.

People should only have one soul mate mark (two, if the other is platonic).  
It's what his parents, what he believes, and what his son will believe, not that that multitude of stains is in any way normal.  
Brian will make sure of it.

:::

Betty isn't sure who she hates more.  
Bruce's father, or her own.

She would have loved Bruce, even without the sky blue band (at the top of all the others) around his arm. He was smart and kind and beautiful (especially when he was embarrassed and she'd made him blush).  
Even later... he was still all of those things.

After Harlem; after she disowns the General, Betty lets herself mourn.  
Crying until the Blue Jay over her heart is at risk of being washed away.  
Crying for who Bruce might have been without their fathers.

:::

Tony makes the first move, the shimmering gold band around Bruce's arm calling out to him, teasing him with all the potential possibilities.  
Of love and science and putting all the pieces of Bruce's soul back together.

He's probably the only person Bruce won't run from.

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kintsugi


	8. Eight... To Remember

 

 

 

Eight... To Remember .

 

 

He's getting older and tired (and maybe those things are making him a little more stupid than usual), but when Clint finally corners the assassin he's been tracking for the better part of a year, she's not alone.

The vaguely familiar looking brunette smiles at him, peering out from around the piller the Black Widow had shoved her behind. 

"They call you Hawkeye?" She asked, her accent American.

"They do." Clint confirmed. 

"Natalia," The girl poked the Black Widow in the ribs until the red head glanced at her, "He's cute."

"On mozhet byt', malen'kaya sestra."

"He is," She assured her ...sister? "And he can protect us."

 

:::

 

"You think she's a sleeper agent?" Fury asked the room, "In case the Cold War restarts, or something? "

Coulson, frowning at something in the file that had been hastily thrown together, ignored him.

Clint shrugged.  "Natasha said she got Darcy out before they started her in the training program.  Said her father asked her to. I think they both just want to get out."

"Natasha? " Fury raised his good eye's brow at him.

"She asked to be called that, sir."

"And did she say who Darcy's father was?"

"Said he was the Winter Soldier."

"That's impossible." Coulson declared, finally looking up from the file, "The Red Room, Leviathan, they're the go to people for the stuff no one else thinks of, but that..."

Coulson shook his head, at a loss for words. 

"We have a match for the Winter Soldier?" Fury guessed, unused to seeing such a reaction from his right hand man, "Who is he?'

"According to this," Coulson dropped the open file in front of his boss, the page with the DNA results on top, "James Buchanan Barnes."

 

:::

 

The Asset doesn't meet his daughter until she's nearly four years old. 

A memory (of another young face,  one that calls him brother) falls loose when she smiles at him. Only she and Natalia smile for him.

He doesn't remember her mother.

(Of all the words that could be used to describe his role in her creation, rapist is the only one he hopes doesn't apply.)

She isn't what they'd hoped she'd be, but it hadn't been a complete waste. They always have a use for young girls.

Natalia takes her away (because he asks he to), and then they make sure he'll never remember her again.

"Pomnite, kto?"

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Phonetic Russian translations from Google Translate.  (I hope they're not too wrong. )

"On mozhet byt', malen'kaya sestra." - "He might be, little sister. "

"Pomnite, kto?" - "Remember who?"

 

* * *

 

Head canon explanation - The Red Room wanted to see if the version of the serum that Bucky got would/could be passed on (genetically/ biologically etc), but it didn't (or hasn't yet) worked on the first test (Darcy). Natasha got Darcy away before she started the red room training and could be adopted by the Lewis's (I really need to write something where Darcy is biologically related to her amazing, loving- and possibly poly -parents), while secretly visiting every now and again. 

Darcy goes with Natasha when she tries to run from the red room and they both get tracked and caught by Clint.  SHIELD has samples of all the commandos' DNA and they matched Darcy's to Bucky,  who should be dead.

 

The Red Room wiped Bucky's memory of Darcy as punishment and a precaution. 


	9. Nine... Strange Branches.

 

 

 

Nine... Strange Branches. 

 

Clint's always been better at spotting the people who should have gone to Camp Half Blood (and oh Great Great something or other Grandma Artemis, did it need a name change), than staying there himself. 

He'd hung around just long enough to learn that most of the gods were jerks and, at ten, he already knew more about archery than the teachers did.

 

He'd barely been 12 when he'd realised that the Greeks weren't the only gods in existence and that nobody claiming godly titles liked to acknowledge the other pantheons. Or has any clue how to stay out of a mortal's pants.

 

It had certainly made Thor a lot easier to rationalize. 

 

And if Tony Stark didn't have Hephaestus somewhere in his family tree, Clint was going to eat his favourite bow,

 

 

 


	10. Ten... Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder alternate version. (The not-so happier ending)

Ten... Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder alternate version.  
(The not-so happier ending)

"Barton and Romanoff," Fury flipped through the file, "They hav- had a relationship with this girl?"  
"Darcy Lewis, she had a box of things; postcards, a few photos, other souvenirs," Hill explained, "It was long distance of course, and erratic, but they seemed to be making it work. Enough that Miss Lewis wanted to keep Elsie. I had the lab rush the DNA test, it confirmed that Agent Barton's the father."  
"Elsie, Elsie, Elsie," Fury turned to look at the child in question, who was waving a hand at the bird themed mobile hanging just out of reach and making happy noises.

Three things had surprised Maria about Elsie's sudden appearance. The first was that Coulson was terrible with babies. The second had to do with the lack of fuss getting the baby stuff set up in her office had created (Shield has more than adequate child care facilities, but Maria, as much as she can, isn’t letting Elsie out of her sight). The third was Fury's reaction.

“Elizavetta Francine, really?” Fury asked, sounding tired and not yet looking away from the baby.  
“Mallory Kaywinnet Serenity Lee Lewis was a possibility.” Maria countered, with a small smile, “Elsie’s not so bad.”  
Fury sighed. “Have you told them yet?”  
“They’re off-coms until tomorrow. Coulson and I are going to tell them in person.” She glanced at her watch, Elsie would need changing and feeding soon.  
“And the car that hit Miss Lewis, what happened with the driver?” He finally turned back to her, “Am I going to have to explain away the actions of two very upset assassins?”  
“It was a stupid accident,” Maria sounded just as or more tired than Fury, “The driver parked the car and didn't set the handbrake properly, his dog hit it while he was inside a store. Miss Lewis was in the wrong place at the wrong time, that’s all.”

:::

Sitting in Phil's office; an even blander expression than normal on his face, it feels like they've been sent to the principle's office. Or (the memory of his and Barney's babysitter trying her best not to burst into tears, settled at the front of Clint's brain) when one of the neighbours had stepped in to tell the Barton's the bad news.  
"Darcy." Clint realised, reaching for Tasha's hand.  
"I'm sorry," Phil sounded sincere, "There was an accident, we only found out because she'd put my card with some paperwork that had your names on it."  
"What sort of paperwork?" Natasha's nails dug into Clint's hand deep enough to draw blood. He doesn't notice.  
Phil glanced behind them.  
Hill had a blanket - Phil's precious handmade vintage Captain America quilt - wrapped bundle in her arms.

:::

The conflicted, distraught look on Natasha's face might just be worse than the moment Clint's drained of blood and he slumped against the wall before sinking to the floor, as if she can't decide who needs her more.  
The man crumpled at her feet or their lover's daughter, their daughter.  
To Maria, the worst part of all of it, is when Barton nudges his foot against Natasha's - who had glanced down with hope and relief and grief written clear across her face, like she was expecting someone else to be there, who won't ever be there again - and tells her that he comes second.  
And watching whatever it was that was holding Natasha up evaporate.


	11. Not A Wish List

Disclaimer: Not mine.

 

 

 

 

Eleven... Not a Wish List. 

 

 

Darcy wove her way through the float of dancers warming up under Tasha's instruction, stepped over the gaggle of geese and reached up to snag a pear from the tree that took up most of the vertical space in Stark's penthouse. 

"Ok," She sighed, glaring at a suspiciously innocent looking Clint, "Who let Thor listen to  _The Twelve Days of Christmas?"_

 

 

 

 

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Holidays everyone


	12. Twelve... Alternate Destinations.

 

 

Twelve... Alternate Destinations.

 

 

 

A is for Addams.

 

"They're weird." Darcy warned, "Most families are to other people, but um... mine's really, really weird."  
"I can handle weird, Darce,"Clint looked from Darcy passed the ornate iron gates, to the large gothic style mansion, "It's one of SHIELD's specialties."  
"I know you think you can" Darcy gave him a doubtful look, "But there's an animated hand running around, the food Granny serves might try to kill you, and my cousins will try to kill you. It's also Great Aunt Calpernia's Deathday tomorrow."  
"Who's Great Aunt Calpernia?" He asked, cautiously "And what's a deathday?"  
"She's a relative who was burned at the stake in 1706, for being a witch. We're very proud of her," Darcy answered, "Every year; on the day she died, we dig up her bones and have a party in the cemetery. Sometimes, Calpernia joins in."

 

*

 

C is for Crocker.

 

"I didn't know you had a sister." Audrey prompted, accepting the beer Duke held out for her.  
"Two of them," He smiled ruefully, "Darcy's the youngest, the last of Simon's wild oats."  
"Any idea why she's here?"  
"Visiting family, she said."  
Further along the bar, Dwight snorted into his drink.  
"You got a problem with my little sister, Sasquatch?" Duke glared at him.  
Audrey wisely kept quiet.  
"I don't know your siste-"  
"The-"  
"-r, but I do know the guy she's with." Dwight explained, ignoring the interuption, "We were in the army together, he taught me how to use a crossbow."  
"What do you know?" Duke asked, letting Audrey shoo away a customer, "When did you see him last?"  
"Some things you might not like," Dwight shrugged, "And I haven't seen him since an agency picked him up"  
"CIA?" Duke guessed, "NSA?"  
Dwight wrote something on a napkin and slid it across the bar, "Try something with more letters."

 

*

 

H is for Hale.

 

"So," Darcy sidled up to her cousin, "Uncle Peter knows that if he hurts My Person, no amount of werewolf healing is going to make his balls grow back, right?"

 

*

 

S is for Siminov.

 

Clint kept a hand at Darcy's back as Ivan pounced, his bear hug squeezing all the air out of her lungs.  
"Podsonecnhik," He grinned, kissing both her cheeks before performing the same chest crushing act on Clint, "Pero mozga."  
“Ivan! Let them breath," Victoria; hiding a smirk behind a cup of tea, admonished, "Your Tetya Bozh'ya korovka won't be happy if you accidentally kill them."

 

*

 

J is for Jenkins.

 

"They have invitations." Jenkins answered the question Eve was about to ask, "I've learnt not to question invitations."  
"You question the invitations all the time." Eve snorted.  
"I question the people, not-" Jenkins turned, almost running into one of their new guests, "-the actual invitations. How may I help you Miss Lewis?"  
"Three things." Darcy smiled in a way that Eve found worrying.  
"Yes?"  
"Jake and Clint are doing some bromance bonding thing that will probably involve hangovers at some point, I'm about to take Cassie to Asgard to get a second opinion on her brain grape, and you should probably go check on Ezekiel."  
"At the risk of regretting asking," He sounded like he already did, "Why should we be checking on Mr Jones?"  
"Because he still hasn't learnt not to try to pick the pocket I keep my tazer in."

 

 

 

 *

 

Translations :  подсолнечник (Podsonecnhik) sunflower

                      :  перо мозга      (Pero mozga) feather brain

                      :  тетя божья коровка   (Tetya Bozh'ya korovka) Auntie Ladybird

 

 

 


	13. Thirteen... Never, Never, Never Again!

Disclaimer: not mine, really not mine.

 

 

 

* * *

 

Thirteen... Never, Never, Never Again.

 

Darcy snatched the towel from Heimdall's hands as she attempted to stomp her way passed him. The best she could manage was a sad, wet  squelch 

"I did try to warn you." He reminded her, doing a much better job of keeping a straight face than anyone else she'd met on the way out of Asgard.

Darcy wiped her face free of the thick,  custard like substance it looked like she'd been bathing in, and levelled Natasha's best death-glare at him.

"If Volstagg ever needs another babysitter..." She ran a hand over her hair, letting the custard-stuff fall onto the shiny floor,  "Tell him I'd rather pretend to be Fandral's wedding date again. "

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone cares... I'm still here, I'm still writing, but real-life takes precedence and writer's block is a bucket of slime.


	14. Fourteen... Shattered Parts

 

 

Fourteen... Shattered Parts

 

* * *

 

 

  
They take her.  
They take her, and then they take her wings.  
They beat her and drug her; again and again, until the faint shimmery marks that fall from her shoulder blades, down her back and legs, to curl around her ankles, _lifts_ off of her skin into bone and sinew, blood, ligaments and nerves, muscles and feathers.  
Bright white and heavy (dangerous), like a swan's.

They learn how to make them _lift_. Over and over again.  
And then they cut them out.  
They try (and fail) to reattach her wings, before waiting to see if they grow back.  
(They don't.)  
And she escapes before they start the dissection of her.  
*  
The second last time Darcy see her wings, they've been mounted; like a hunting trophy, on the wall of the man who held the scalpel.  
*  
Once she's safe (or as safe as she can be) Darcy screams. She screams until there's nothing left to scream with. And then she screams some more.  
She screams until a not-so-dead man breaks down the door and promises to help make other people do the screaming.

The Winter Soldier doesn't take her to the Avengers.  
Darcy takes him there instead; a year later, with more red dripping from her hands than Bucky, Clint and Natasha combined.  
All of it belonging to Hydra.  
Turns out it's a lot harder for things to grow new heads when you're ripping out their spines.  
(And no, she doesn't mean that metaphorically, figuratively, or symbolically.)  
*  
All that's left of her wings are the scars (so many scars) and the thicker, darker, starker, almost tribal lines she'd had tattooed in their place.  
They'd used her real ones to start the fire they'd burned the man who'd cut them from her on. He'd screamed more than she ever had.  
It had also been a lot more satisfying than Darcy had thought it should have been, even if the smell had sent her behind a tree to throw up. She'd had good company. One of another not-so-dead man's baby agents had held her hair back until she'd needed Darcy to do the same for her.  
*  
(Darcy's oh-so jealous of Sam. Her wings - gone now - had been real, but her bone structure hadn't been right for flying. His are manufactured, but oh, how he can soar.)  
*  
Clint and Natasha; who mourn for her wings nearly as much as Darcy does, balance it against their relief that she's alive (and against their anger-shock-outrage at her news of Coulson being alive, or some variation there of).  
Darcy's wings were a part of her. They were not all of her.

Thor and Wanda hold her tight and make it storm a little _more_ than it should have been, so she can scream again (her voice has never truly recovered from before) without shattering apart.  
And scream with her.  
They understands in a way that the others residing in the tower don't. _Can't_ understand.  
That sometimes, not all of your soul exists on the inside.

 

* * *

 

 

 

 


	15. Fifteen... For The Hoard

 

Disclaimer: Not mine, etc. 

* * *

 

 

 

Fifteen... For The Hoard. 

 

Darcy hasn't Hoarded people in centuries. Many, many centuries. 

She really doesn't like losing people, and after a few more tragic loses, she'd gone back to tradition and Hoarded things like jewelry, first edition books and music (so much music) instead. 

 

***

 

But then she'd met Jane (and that pretty, sparkling brain of hers) and then Erik. 

( _Sorry Great great Aunt Melina's second cousin three times removed, I didn't mean to steal him from your Hoard. But no, he's mine now and you can't have him back._ )

 

***

 

Loki is certainly surprised to learn that there are dragons on Midgard. He's even more surprised when one of them comes to collect the two members of her Hoard he'd accidentally stolen from her. 

 

 

* * *

 

A/N: Finally, inspiration!!

Also, Happy Whichever Holiday you celebrate. 

And finally, it reached 41degrees (that's 105.8 Fahrenheit) today (higher in some areas), and in the last couple of years Christmas Day has been hotter. Can the places with too much snow send it here please? 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry, I meant to get some of these posted earlier - damn you real life - and some of them will be really terrible, I had to get them out of my head to make space for the better stuff.
> 
> The Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder alternate version has been posted.


End file.
